Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

plant collecting and fieldwork in South America medicinal, culinary, or other traditional uses of plants chromosomes and plant classification early herbals and botanical illustrations botanical institutions exchanging plants, seeds, and specimens microscopy and photomicrography in botanical research How did botanists and gardeners introduce plants from one region to another? grafting, budding, and propagation of tropical fruit crops

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

← Back to results

Page 6 · DO #336 · 204_Popenoe_Bx26FF335r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Standley, Paul Carpenter, 6 June 1938 –12 May 1961
Digital Object
DO #336, page 6
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 6 ↗

Page transcription

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
ROOSEVELT ROAD AND FIELD DRIVE
CHICAGO

September 21, 1941

Dear Popenoe:

The Flora of the Lancetilla Valley hasn't been exhausted as yet, the edition I mean, and one has been sent to you at La Lima. If you need or wish further copies, let me know, for I think they can be found.

As you have doubtless learned before this, things haven't gone so well with Dr. Johnston. It is very much too bad, for he probably is going to have difficulty in finding work elsewhere, and I feel sure he is rather badly off financially. However, if his children can't find work at the present time in the States, probably they never will be able to do so at any time.

Mrs. Lewis and the children have been in the States all summer, and most of the time not very far from Chicago, but she hasn't been in the city, and I haven't seen her.

The past season I had a most successful time of it in Guatemala, and brought back some 19,000 numbers of plants. With the collections planned for the coming year we should have sufficient material for a creditable account of the plants, and I hope we may begin publication by the end of next year. Already we have a good quantity of manuscript. Work in the Museum has been delayed lately because all our WPA employees were taken away July 1. In the course of time we may become accustomed to getting along without them, but this summer has been difficult. I have had to write labels for my collections, something I certainly hadn't expected to do. Now they are almost finished, but it will be months yet before the whole collection is mounted and ready for study.

In preparing the specimens for mounting, I find there are more new species and more new records for the country than I had supposed. I do believe that the flora of the central departments is pretty well known now, but there is much still to be found in the Oriente and Occidente, and always in Alta Verapaz.

Steyermark is to make another visit to Guatemala, leaving New Orleans December 3. Probably he will be in the country until the end of next year's rainy season, ten months or so. It is especially important that a whole invierno be spent in collecting there, for it is only then that the flora of the drier regions can be studied properly. He is to give special attention to northern Huehuetenango and El Quiche, and has hopes of getting into Petén. The last I don't consider too important, for what has come out of that region up to the present time hasn't been of too great interest. At any rate, he always heads for the more remote and